If someone mentions the period 1492-1800 in Europe, you might think: Columbus’ discovery of the Americas; Protestant Reformation; Shakespeare; Charles II; Scientific Revolution via Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle and co; Dr Johnson and Mad King George III. What you probably don’t know is that, at just the time when European Christians were denouncing supposed cannibals of the Americas as the scum of the earth, these same Europeans were swallowing just about every part of the human body as medicine.

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10 Yummy Mummies for Medicine

In the Middle Ages, physicians began to use the bodies of ancient Egyptian mummies for medicine. In 1424, for example, the authorities in Cairo discovered persons who confessed under torture that they ‘were removing bodies from the tombs, boiling them in hot water, and collecting the oil which rose to the surface. This was sold to the Europeans for 25 gold pieces per hundredweight. The men were imprisoned’.

By the time of Shakespeare, in the 1580s, one Elizabethan traveller told of seeing ‘the bodies of ancient men, not rotten but all whole’, being daily unearthed from a Cairo pyramid. And a British merchant apprentice, John Sanderson, illicitly obtained a mummy shipment of over six hundred pounds in weight.

Come the late 17th century, it was getting much harder to smuggle mummies into Europe for medicine. Accordingly, merchants in Egypt baked up the flesh of dead lepers, beggars or camels into ‘counterfeit mummy’ to satisfy European demand. Finally, the trade plundered ‘Guanche mummies’ from the Canary Islands.

As the Guanche people were thought to have emigrated from North Africa, the civilised Europeans were in fact eating Africans; and also eating ancient Egyptians, founders of perhaps the greatest civilization the world has ever known. Perhaps the Europeans were the Real Savages after all.

9 Drink the Red Tincture

Well: you may first want to know how it was made. One should take ‘the cadaver of a reddish man … whole, fresh without blemish, of around twenty-four years of age, dead of a violent death (not of illness), exposed to the moon’s rays for one day and night, but with a clear sky’. One must next ‘cut the muscular flesh of this man and sprinkle it with powder of myrrh and at least a little bit of aloe, then soak it, making it tender, finally hanging the pieces in a very dry and shady place until they dry out’. Finally, ‘a most red tincture’ could be extracted from this artfully cured flesh.

This kind of recipe was popular among followers of the controversial medical reformer Paracelsus (d.1541). And many of these followers were extremely influential. The Paracelsian Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573-1655) has rightly been dubbed ‘Europe’s physician’. In his long career he treated Henri IV, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, James I, John Donne, Charles I, Charles II, and Oliver Cromwell.

8 The Vampire Pope and the Vampire Aristocracy

In July 1492 Pope Innocent VIII lay dying. One of the alleged cures attempted at Innocent’s deathbed is particularly memorable. Three healthy youths were bribed by the pope’s physician, with the promise of a ducat apiece. The youths were then cut and bled. All three presently bled to death. The pope drank their blood, still fresh and hot, in an attempt to revive his failing powers. The attempt was not successful. Innocent himself also died soon after, on 25 July.

So runs the account of the pope’s contemporary, Stefano Infessura. Infessura was a lawyer and a fierce critic of Innocent VIII. Can his claims be trusted? Contemporary evidence shows that Innocent’s Vampire Cure seems to have been merely a more extreme version of a therapy recommended by others. Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), for example, was one of the most highly-respected figures of Renaissance Europe. And he too believed that the aged could rejuvenate themselves if they would ‘suck the blood of an adolescent’ who was ‘clean, happy, temperate, and whose blood is excellent but perhaps a little excessive’.

In 1777 one Thomas Mortimer claimed that, ‘towards the close of the fifteenth century, an idle opinion prevailed, that the declining strength and vigour of old people might be repaired by transfusing the blood of young persons’. He adds that some ‘drank the warm blood of young persons’ and that the practice was suppressed in France after ‘some of the principal nobility … turned raving mad’ as a result.

7 Cannibal monarchs

Here’s something you were never taught in your school history classes. James I refused corpse medicine; Charles II made his own corpse medicine; and Charles I was made into corpse medicine. James was in fact unusual in his refusal, and it was somewhat surprising, as he was one of the most disgusting monarchs in British history. He never washed or changed his clothes, and was so fond of hunting that he would urinate in the saddle to save the trouble of dismounting.

As for Charles I? His blood was mopped up with handkerchieves by spectators after his beheading in 1649. There is in fact a painting of this, by an eyewitness, John Weesop. Intriguingly, some of the handkerchieves belonged to Parliamentarians, who still nonetheless believed that the king’s blood could cure ‘the king’s evil’.

But the biggest player of all in the dark world of corpse medicine was Charles II. Charles reportedly paid £6,000 for the recipe for ‘spirit of skull’, originally formulated by the eminent chemist Robert Goddard in the 1650s. This distillation now became so closely associated with Charles that it was known as ‘the King’s Drops’, and was in great demand amongst élite patients. One Lady Anne Dormer drank them with chocolate against depression, and they were given to Queen Mary on her deathbed in 1694. Before that, they were the very first remedy Charles reached for on 2 February 1685, a few days before he died.

In France decades before, the Emperor Francis I (d.1547) ‘always carried [mummy] in his purse, fearing no accident, if he had but a little of that by him’. In Britain William III was given powdered skull for his epilepsy.

6 Cannibal Aristocrats and Gentry

Robert Boyle, the aristocrat who became known as the Father of Chemistry, distilled human blood into various treatments around this time, and would sometimes give these to a noble or genteel patient under a false name, lest they had qualms about swallowing blood. He claimed a near miraculous recovery in one case.

Whilst some of the nobility were therefore unwitting vampires, others were quite openly cannibalistic. A 1653 cure for epilepsy included ‘a pennyweight of the powder of gold, six pennyweight of pearl, six pennyweight of amber, six pennyweight of coral, and eight grains of bezoar’, adding: ‘also you must put some powder of a dead man’s skull’. This came from the recipe book of Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent. Historian Elaine Leong has shown that many other noblewomen and gentlewomen of the age made their own cannibal medicines, using mummy, skull, or blood and fat. If you were a humble tenant of such a woman, you would probably not have the nerve to refuse the cannibal treats she offered you.

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5 The Secret History of Human Skulls

If you happened to chance upon a human skull in the time of Charles II, you would probably feel great joy, rather than great fear. A prized medical commodity, one single skull could be worth as much eleven shillings (whilst an unskilled labourer might earn perhaps ten pence a day). Shavings or powder of skull could be used against epilepsy and haemorrhoids, and the King’s Drops against everything from depression down to miracle cures on the deathbed.

The most highly valued skull was one with moss on it, as pictured on the cover of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires. This moss would be powdered and then used to stop bleeding: either on wounds or thrust up the nostrils against nosebleeds. Robert Boyle himself used it against a severe nosebleed one summer, and swore that it worked, even when merely held in his hand.

Boyle’s family were from Ireland, and so was the moss which he used. With no one left to bury the dead after the war crimes of English invaders, skeletons and skulls lay in green Irish fields for perhaps decades, and in some cases botanical moss grew on the skull. You could see these in London chemists’ shops around 1750, in the time of Dr Johnson. As late as the 1770s, by the time Mad King George III was on the throne, there were still import and export duties on skulls brought from Ireland, and later shipped onto Germany.

4 The Secret History of Human Fat

In October 1601, the then Dutch city of Ostend was a few weeks into the longest siege in history. At one point, the Dutch lured a party of Spanish besiegers into a trap and slew them all. After rifling the corpses for valuables and arms, a few of the Dutch could also be seen dragging wobbling sacks back into the city. They contained human fat, swiftly plundered from the fresh corpses by surgeons.

The reason for this was that human fat was a prime treatment against wounds and sores. Usually, the chief source of fat at this time was the executioner. In France, Italy and northern Europe he would either sell it to chemists or treat you himself. Executioners performed a surprising number of cures in this era, and in Germany one of them (records Kathy Stuart) was supposed to have saved a limb given up for amputation. The bandages he used were almost certainly soaked in human fat. In Britain in the time of Dr Johnson, fat continued in use as other corpse medicine was attacked. It was used to treat rabies, gout, cancer and arthritis.

Some idea of its value comes from an incident in Norfolk in 1736. After a man and his wife had ‘had some words’, the husband suddenly ‘went out and hanged himself’. An inquest ruled that, as this was suicide, the man must be buried at the crossroads. But, eschewing funeral or burial, ‘his wife sent for a surgeon, and sold the body for half a guinea’. While the surgeon was carefully ‘feeling about the body’ the woman assured him: ‘”he is fit for your purpose, he is as fat as butter”‘.

3 Medical Vampires at Public Executions

Touring Vienna in the winter of 1668-9, the English traveller Edward Browne saw a public execution, the man beheaded whilst sitting in a chair. ‘As soon as his head fell to the ground, a man ran ‘speedily with a pot in his hand, and filling it with the blood, yet spouting out of his neck, he presently drank it off, and ran away’. This he did, Browne adds, ‘as a remedy against the falling-sickness’.

By this time, hundreds if not thousands of those suffering ‘the falling-sickness’ (as epilepsy was then known) had drunk hot fresh blood at public executions in Austria, Germany and Scandinavia. And hundreds or thousands more would continue to do so until at least 1866.

In Denmark in 1823 the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen saw ‘”a pitiful poor person made to drink by his superstitious parents a cup of the blood of an executed person, in an attempt to cure him from epilepsy”’. In Sweden the authorities did not permit blood drinking at beheadings. At a beheading in 1866 soldiers were stationed to prevent the rush for blood, so that it soaked into the earth. But as soon as the guards had left, people surged forward and, falling to their knees, crammed the bloodsoaked dirt into their mouths.

2 The Secret History of the Soul

A great many forms of corpse medicine were underpinned by one extraordinary belief: simply, that you could swallow the powers of the human soul by drinking blood, or various distillations of skull or flesh. In this sense, then, the Whitewashed Cannibalism of Europe was emphatically Christian.
Those who drank hot blood at executions might seem to have the highest chance of absorbing such power. In most cases the felon was not obviously dead as they drank. As epilepsy was then held to be a disease of the soul, there was also a special logic linking disease and cure.

In other cases, the bodies of criminals used by chemists may have hung on gibbets for some time. But our medical reformer Paracelsus, champion of such recipes, had stated quite precisely that such a corpse was useful for up to three days. This claim was rooted in a startling but widespread belief of northern Europe. For some time after what we might call legal death, the power of the soul was held to smoulder on in the body. It was associated with the blood in particular, but also with very fine hot spirits of blood which saturated all flesh and bone. Because the soul and spirits were a physical force at this time, the young red-headed man killed by violence offered the greatest source of youthful vitality, as well as the best type of flesh and blood.

1 When and why did it end?

The educated began to turn against corpse medicine around 1750. Dr Johnson and his new Dictionary were key players in this shift, with Johnson deriding the ‘horrid medicines’ of a backward past. Johnson and others sought to create a new culture of Reason opposed to unenlightened Superstition. They also increasingly gave up the idea of the soul in the body, which meant that people no longer seemed worth eating for medicine. And as the emerging Medical Profession struggled to clean up its Public Image, corpse medicine seemed an increasingly hard sell to genteel patients, who were now more easily disgusted than those of the Restoration.

But corpse medicine continued amongst ordinary people for well over a hundred years. Along with the vampires of continental beheadings, we hear of Britons obtaining skulls to treat their children in Victorian times; whilst in Scotland until around 1900 epileptics might be advised to drink from the skull of a suicide.

No less strange for being true.

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About The Author: Richard Sugg is the author of eleven books, including Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Falun Gong; Fairies: A Dangerous History; Our Week with the Juffle Hunters; and The Smoke of the Soul. He has previously lectured in English and History at the universities of Cardiff and Durham (2001-2017), and his work has featured in The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Lancet, The Times, Daily Telegraph, the London Review of Books and The New Yorker, among others. Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires has been translated into Turkish. He has appeared on television with Pat Spain, and with Tony Robinson, when they made cannibal medicines for Channel 4. It was educational. @DrSugg

On the morning of April 30, 1943, off the southwest coast of Spain, a local sardine fisherman made the gruesome discovery of a lifeless body floating in the water. The dead man, who appeared to be a soldier with a black briefcase chained to his waist, was quickly brought ashore and handed over to the authorities.

Later, documents found in the attache case revealed top secret plans about a large-scale Allied invasion of Greece and Sardinia. The information eventually landed on the desk of German leader Adolf Hitler, who reacted decisively. However, there was just one problem: The discovery was a fake.

Code-named Operation Mincemeat, which was part of a much larger disinformation campaign called Operation Barclay, the subterfuge was designed to mislead the Germans about the Allies’ intended attack on Sicily. The morbid ruse became one of the most bizarre chapters of World War II, highlighted by a message to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stating, “Mincemeat swallowed. Rod, line and sinker.”

10 A Critical Turning Point

British Intelligence played a significant role leading up to the attack on what Winston Churchill referred to as the “soft underbelly of Europe.” The Mediterranean invasion (“Operation Husky”) became the largest amphibious operation in history to date, deploying 160,000 Allied troops—and one cadaver.

After recent victories in North Africa, Allied top brass shifted their focus to Germany’s stranglehold on Europe. The strategic location of Sicily was deemed the next logical stepping-stone—and the enemy knew it. But the use of a modern-day Trojan horse helped divert the enemy away from the island and allowed the Anglo-American force to launch a two-pronged attack.

Led by General George Patton’s Seventh Army in the west sector and General Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth Army in the east, the successful campaign advanced Allied objectives on the continent and affected the outcome of the war.^[1]

9 Ian Fleming Helped To Inspire The Plan

Prior to achieving acclaim as the author of the popular James Bond spy novels, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming worked in British Intelligence. As the assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey (the basis for Bond’s MI6 boss “M”), Fleming helped to pen a report known as the “Trout Memo” in which Fleming compared military deception to fly-fishing.

The multi-item list contained various schemes, including one entitled “A Suggestion (not a very nice one),” that he found in a book by fellow intelligence officer-turned-writer Basil Thomson. Fleming described using a corpse obtained from the morgue and dressed to resemble an officer en route to delivering sensitive documents. The phantom messenger could then be dropped near the coastline and eventually find its way into enemy hands.^[2]

Fleming also contributed to other key operations, including D-Day, all the while chronicling his experiences that influenced his best-selling books and iconic films.

8 Not Exactly 007

British officials cast an unlikely player to star as the hero in the real-life, high-stakes thriller. The wartime production involved an intriguing story line, numerous plot twists, and a role to die for.

Glyndwr Michael was born on January 4, 1909, in the small coal-mining town of Aberbargoed in South Wales. Growing up in an impoverished family, Michael mostly worked odd jobs as an unskilled laborer. By the time he was 31, both his parents were dead. Eventually, he found himself living as a vagrant on the streets of London.^[3]

He eventually became deathly ill after ingesting rat poison and was taken to St. Pancras Hospital, where he died on January 24, 1943. Michael underwent a routine examination by the coroner, who determined the cause of death as suicide.

Despite Michael’s unremarkable life and grim demise, he would soon embark on an extraordinary adventure.

7 A Ghoulish Makeover

British intelligence officers Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu were tasked with spearheading the extensive skullduggery. As part of the counterespionage unit, the men plotted around the clock in a secret underground room in the Admiralty. Discretion was of vital importance to ensure secrecy and give the deceit a fighting chance to succeed. But first, they needed a body.

The mortuary at St. Pancras, the largest in the country, provided an ample supply of potential candidates. But the deceased had to meet strict criteria: no family, no friends, and no visible signs of foul play. Glyndwr Michael fit the bill perfectly.^[4]

The recently departed Welshman was given the pseudonym Captain (Acting Major) William “Bill” Martin of the Royal Marines. With his new identity established, the cadaver remained locked away and refrigerated while Cholmondeley and Montagu crafted a backstory clever enough to fool the Germans. Their ploy also needed a name. With a wink and nod to their dark sense of humor, they called it Operation Mincemeat.

6 An Elaborate Hoax

Several highly nuanced factors (including luck) ultimately determined the fate of the operation. “Major Martin,” posing as a courier who had been killed in a plane crash at sea, had to appear both believable and random and furnish just enough subtle details to spring the trap.

A bogus letter from Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye to General Sir Harold Alexander contained the key piece of misinformation. The letter was written by Nye himself for added authenticity.^[5]

The dead man also held an assortment of documents and wallet litter, providing a glimpse into the man’s personality. Items included a military identification card, postage stamps, personal letters, theater tickets, cigarettes, and an angry overdraft letter from Lloyds Bank in London.

In an effort to discourage a complete autopsy (and assuming the Spanish pathologists were Roman Catholic), a silver St. Christopher’s medal delivered an element of spiritual guidance to the mission.

5 True (False) Romance

The chicanery even went as far as to fabricate an imaginary girlfriend named “Pam.” A few rambling, flowery love letters were added to the mix as well as an actual photograph of a young woman with wavy brown hair by the name of Jean Leslie. The 19-year-old from Hampshire worked as an MI5 secretary, and her seemingly innocuous contribution soon took on a life of its own.^[6]

Despite being a married father of two young children, British intelligence officer Montagu became smitten with his coworker and began pursuing her after hours with dining and dancing. He even wrote her his own notes of affection, addressing them to “Pam” and signing them “Bill.” But alas, this Montagu lacked Shakespeare’s touch and Cupid’s quivers, relegating the one-sided fling dead as a doornail.

4 A Race Against The Clock

As any zombie apocalypse fan knows, bodies decompose. Rapidly. British officials knew they had roughly three months before their specimen reached its expiration date. And with the pending invasion of Sicily scheduled for July, the plan shifted into high gear.

On April 19, 1943, the imposter was outfitted in a well-worn uniform (along with clean underwear because, well, you never know) and placed inside an airtight metal container packed with dry ice. Cholmondeley and Montagu accompanied the cargo in a van driven by MI5 agent “Jock” Horsfall. Prior to the war, Horsfall had been a champion race car driver best known for his speedy Aston Martin—the same car James Bond later made famous.^[7]

Horsfall now put skills to use in a mad dash, driving 700 kilometers (435 mi) through the night from London to Greenock, Scotland, and a rendezvous with the Royal Navy.

3 The Spanish Acquisition

Despite claiming a neutral status during the war, Spain was a well-known haven for German spies—especially along its southern coast. The British feared that using a noisy seaplane might prove too risky. Instead, Major Martin went to sea aboard the submarine HMS Seraph.^[8]

With the exception of the captain, Lieutenant Commander Norman Jewell, and a few other officers sworn to secrecy, the crew was told that they were transporting meteorological equipment and set a course for the Iberian Peninsula. The S-class submarine spent the next 10 days navigating dangerous waters and endured two separate bombings from German aircraft.

The Seraph eventually surfaced 1.46 kilometers (0.91 mi) off the coast of Huelva. Jewell ordered the covert shipment up to the deck, where the future admiral read Psalm 39, a prayer of wisdom and forgiveness. Then he placed a “Mae West” (an inflatable vest) on Michael/Martin and gently set him adrift for the final leg of his journey.

2 Hitler Gets Hoodwinked

Convinced of their good fortune, the Abwehr (German intelligence) took the findings directly to Adolf Hitler. The bamboozled dictator eagerly took the bait. He demanded, “Measures regarding Sardinia and the Peloponnese take precedence over everything else.” The blunder proved disastrous.^[9]

Hitler sent Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to Athens to form an army group and began repositioning thousands of soldiers. Finally, on July 9, 1943, the Allies unleashed their blistering attack on Sicily, taking the bewildered German high command by surprise.

Additionally, the falsehood would have far-reaching effects for the remainder of the war as the Germans hesitated to act on legitimate discoveries involving espionage.

1 A Lingering Mystery

The gravestone at Cementerio de la Soledad in Huelva reads, “William Martin, born 29 March 1907, died 24 April 1943.” But in 1998, the British government added the amendment, “Glyndwr Michael Served as Major William Martin, RM,” as a tribute to the man’s true identity. But the story doesn’t end there.

Several alternative theories suggest that an entirely different person lies in Spain, adding further intrigue to the possibility of a hoax within a hoax. After the war, Montagu wrote a best-selling book, The Man Who Never Was, that also spawned a popular film. Although Montagu stood firmly by the official government position, many scholars have questioned its validity.

The central argument casts doubt on whether a hapless drifter in poor physical health could have conceivably passed as a Royal Marine officer and deceived a savvy adversary. Furthermore, why would a meticulous, detail-oriented barrister such as Montagu have risked everything on a stiff who died from poison instead of a real drowning victim?

One of the more popular hypotheses asserts that Glyndwr Michael may have been switched in favor of a sailor named John Melville, who drowned off the coast of Scotland on March 27, 1943. The escort carrier, HMS Dasher, had suffered a horrific (and mysterious) explosion that sank the ship and killed 379 crewmen.

In 2004, a memorial service honored Melville on a ship currently using the name Dasher, in which Lieutenant Commander Mark Hill declared: “In his incarnation as Major Martin, John Melville’s memory lives on in the film, The Man Who Never Was. But we are gathered here today to remember John Melville as a man who most certainly was.”^[10]

Given the heightened secrecy of the operation and the fact that most of the key players are no longer living, it’s doubtful that a definitive conclusion will ever be reached. Nonetheless, Operation Mincemeat remains the gold standard of macabre military maneuvers.

Do you ever think about what happens after death? Not necessarily about the afterlife or lack thereof, but about what will happen to our bodies.

Death is inevitable; therefore, decision-making regarding end-of-life body disposal is inevitable. It is a choice that we will likely be faced with more than once, ranging from consideration of what we want for our own bodies when we die to making decisions for loved ones. There are currently two primary modes of body disposal in the United States: traditional cemetery burials and indoor cremations. According to the National Funeral Directors Association 2021 report, the projected 2021 burial rate is about 36.6% and the cremation rate is 57.7%. However, more and more alternatives are being offered each year, giving us the opportunity to be more creative and intentional with end-of-life decisions.

Note: This list is not exhaustive and is primarily relevant to the United States. Other countries and cultures have other ways to honor their dead.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Funerals that Went Horribly Wrong

10 Backyard Burial

Did you know that you may be able to bury a loved one in your own backyard? This may sound oddly reminiscent of a horror movie or True Crime body disposal, but it can, in fact, be a legal way to honor a loved one. This doesn’t mean everyone can bury bodies in their backyards willy-nilly— there are laws and zoning requirements that must be upheld.

Unfortunately, if you reside in California, Indiana, or Washington, home burials are explicitly forbidden. It is probably wise to abide by these laws because, in California, if someone is found guilty of depositing human remains anywhere other than a graveyard, they are likely to face jail time and/or fines of up to $10,000. Within the states in which home burials are not explicitly forbidden, ten require a funeral director to be involved in the process even though you are burying someone in your own backyard. In general, specific policies and zoning requirements need to be reviewed on a state-by-state basis. New Hampshire, for example, requires bodies be buried at least 50 feet from water sources and 100 feet from buildings.

If you like the idea of a home burial, consider long-term consequences, such as property value. If you decide to move and want to sell your house, the revelation that human remains are on the property could be off-putting to potential buyers.

9 Open Air Cremations

Typical cremations take place inside in industrial-looking incinerators, but an alternative to these traditional cremations is open-air cremation. This takes place outside on a funeral pyre, which is typically a pile of wood or other structure that a body is laid upon and burned. Crestone, Colorado is currently the only place in the United States where open-air cremations are legal, and it is only available to Saguache County residents who have lived in the community for more than three months. These cremations take place through a not-for-profit organization called Informed Final Choices (IFC) in which families and communities are heavily involved in creating very personal end-of-life rituals for their loved ones. Open-air cremations have a different level of intimacy to traditional ones in that community members can gather to put gifts and wood on the pyre and watch as flames envelop their loved one.

Don’t fret if you want the opportunity to participate in an open-air cremation because more states are likely to join the bandwagon in coming years. The Maine state legislature is currently reviewing a proposal that would legalize funeral pyres for a nonprofit that has at least 20 acres of land.

8 Alkaline Hydrolysis

Alkaline Hydrolysis is the liquid cremation of the post-death world. Instead of fire, it uses water (95%), alkaline chemicals (5%) and heat to speed up the decomposition process. Bodies are put in water- and air-tight chambers that hold one hundred gallons of liquid and are heated up to temperatures between 199- and 302-degrees Fahrenheit. The amount of time it takes for the body to disintegrate is dependent on sex, weight, and body mass, anywhere from 3 to 16 hours. The chemicals, such as hydroxide, sever the chemical bonds in the body, leaving effluent (amino acids, water, salt) and bone fragments behind. Alkaline hydrolysis is an “eco-friendlier” alternative to traditional cremation.

It is currently legal in at least 18 states, but that is likely to continue to increase.

7 Green Burial

Green Burials do away with embalming fluids, which are often used in traditional burials to temporarily preserve bodies. Bodies decompose in their due course anyway, and embalming fluids are toxic for the environment and run the risk of leaching into groundwater, so eliminating them from the burial process is healthier for the environment. Green burials also eliminate vaults, which are used in traditional cemeteries to preserve ground level above the casket. Additionally, green burials use biodegradable containers, eliminate pesticides/fertilizers on burial ground, and prioritize sustainable management practices.

Overall, green burials reduce carbon emissions, protect worker health, and restore habitats, and they allow for the complete decomposition of the body back into the Earth. Additionally, they tend to run cheaper than traditional burials because embalming and vault costs are eliminated, and biodegradable caskets are usually cheaper. Here is a list of Green Burial Cemeteries in the United States: https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/gbc_certified_cemeteries-262427.html.

6 Burial Pod

Have you ever dreamed of turning into a tree? Burial pods and biodegradable urns are the closest you can get to realizing that goal. Burial pods are biodegradable egg-shaped capsules; smaller ones are used to house ashes and larger ones contain bodies placed in the fetal position. These capsules are buried underground, and the tree of choice for grieving families is placed atop. Instead of cutting down trees to create caskets, trees are planted and nourished by decomposing bodies, thereby decreasing the environmental impact. Prices vary from $330 for Capsula Mindi capsules to $140 for Bios Urns to $129 for Living Urns.

5 Mushroom Suits

If you would rather join the fungi kingdom than the plant kingdom, mushroom suits are an alternative to burial pods. Mushroom suits are still in relatively early testing stages, but they have potential. These suits are biodegradable and composed of a mix of mushrooms and microorganisms that work to decompose bodies as well as neutralize toxins from the bodies before they can leach into the soil, so, yet another eco-friendly option.

Actor Luke Perry was buried in a mushroom suit upon his unexpected 2019 death.

4 Compost

Composting isn’t just for food waste, it’s for bodies too! In 2021, Colorado and Oregon became the second and third states to legalize human composting, following Washington state’s 2019 legalization. At Recompose, a Washington-based organization, bodies are placed in 4ft tall, 8ft long vessels with alfalfa, straw, wood chips, and other plant material. It could be said to be equivalent to a compost bin, but for bodies instead of food waste. Like a typical compost bin, microbes break down the body into its simplest components through aerobic (oxygenated) respiration, leaving behind nutrient-dense soil. The process takes 30 days and results in one cubic yard of soil. The remaining soil can then be donated to Recompose’s Bells Mountain land trust or returned to the family. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your take, soil from human compost cannot be used to grow food for human consumption. This saves an awkward dinner conversation. Imagine, someone saying “these tomatoes are delicious! Where did you get them?” You respond, “they are homegrown, nourished by my very own mother.” It would certainly give the term “Mother Earth” a new meaning.

Human composting, also known as Natural Organic Reduction (NOR), is one of the most eco-friendly body disposal options in that between .84 and 1.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide are prevented from entering the atmosphere per composted body.

3 Body Donation

Rather than an immediate return to nature, body donation is another after-death, body option. This is different to organ donation because organ donation refers to donating specific parts of the body— such as heart, lungs, kidney, corneas, skin, etc..— directly to another person in order to save or enhance their life, whereas full body donation refers to donating your full body to a medical institute for research and educational purposes. This can still be life saving as information gleaned through research can be used to refine medical techniques and information that students learn through working on cadavers (corpses) factors into their understanding of human bodies when working on future live patients.

You should sign-up with an organization before you die as some organizations will only accept bodies if it was stipulated by the donor before death, not by their family after their death. Unlike with organ donation, there is not a nationwide database that coordinates donations, but you can research set organizations that align with what you are looking for. You can look into your state’s anatomical board or individual medical institutions. When you donate your body to science, it is important to note that you don’t necessarily get to choose exactly what happens with your body. It could become a cadaver used by medical students or used in crash dummy testing research or used for plastic surgery practice or used for forensics research or many other possibilities.

Most people are eligible for body donation, save for certain circumstances including recent surgeries, infectious diseases, or extreme obesity or emaciation. In addition to contributing toward potentially life-saving research, body donation is easier on the budget than traditional burials. It is usually free, save for minimal transportation charges.

2 Cryonics

Have you ever dreamed of coming back to life decades or centuries into the future? If so, cryonics might be the answer for you. Although, it is said to be more pseudoscientific than scientific, so your journey to the future may end in a -320 Fahrenheit metal tank. Cryonics is the process of storing human bodies at very low temperatures with the hope that science will advance enough to reanimate the corpse in the future. When you die, your body is stabilized and packed with ice until you are transported to a cryonic facility where you are injected with a chemical mixture called a cryoprotectant — a human antifreeze. This protects organs from ice formation at extremely low temperatures, and, instead, puts cells in suspended animation.

This is a pricey post-death option as it can cost up to $150,000 for full body preservation. However, if you are more frugal and not too attached to your body from the neck down, you can pay $50,000 to preserve your head. Some people believe future technology will be able to regenerate the rest of the body. As of 2021, there are only about 1,700 people who have chosen this route.

1 Eternal Reef

Finally, an Eternal Reef is another Green Burial-certified option for your body after death, particularly if you prefer an aquatic send-off to a terrestrial one. An Eternal Reef is a human-made reef that replicates the marine environment. Cremated remains are blended into an environmentally safe, marine-grade concrete reef ball. Families are permitted to help mix the remains into the concrete as well as to personalize the reefs in other ways (i.e., handprints and written messages). These reef balls are then permanently placed in permitted ocean locations to become part of already existing reefs, thereby strengthening the ocean’s waning reef systems.

Prices vary depending on the size of the reef ball from $3,000 up to $6,500.